Hit List: The gang that can't shoot straight
Hit List
A special brick-laying edition of the Hit List starts with the mind-boggling masonry of four supposedly elite basketball players.
1. Chris Lofton
What a difference a month makes. On Feb. 23, Tennessee beat Memphis to take over the No. 1 spot in the nation. On Thursday, the Volunteers got bounced from the NCAA tournament by Louisville thanks in large part to yet another embarrassing shot chart from Chris Lofton. Playing on a gimpy ankle, Lofton paved an Orange Brick Road with his errant shots in the tournament, going 1-for-7 in the opening round, 3-for-11 in round two and finally 3-for-15 as the Vols lost to Louisville. That's 7-for-33 over three games, an astonishing 21.2 percent. Bruce Pearl likes to call Lofton the best contested jump shooter in the nation, but against the aggressive close-outs of Louisville he was 2-for-11 from behind the arc and many of those misses weren't even close.
2. Sam Cassell
Ever since the NBA season began, the prevailing wisdom has been that the Boston Celtics could not win the title with Rajon Rondo at the point because his shooting limitations made the C's too easy to defend in the halfcourt. Before Rondo had even clanged his first 18-footer, the Sam Cassell whispers were floating around Boston. Sure, Cassell could barely even pretend to play defense anymore, but his shooting ability would assure plenty of operating space for Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce and more open looks for Ray Allen. Right? Well, not yet. Cassell arrived via the waiver wire at the beginning of March. He has played in nine games and shot 33.9 percent from the floor while his 1-for-8 from behind the arc has dropped his season 3-point percentage to 24.2. Who's he going to keep honest with those numbers? And of course he's been his typical invisible self on defense. Rondo, meanwhile, is shooting 48 percent from the field -- mostly on floaters in the lane, medium-range jumpers and drives all the way to the basket -- while playing a vastly superior defense. It was worth a shot, but it doesn't look like there's any way the Cassell experiment can have a positive impact on the Celtics in the playoffs. If Doc Rivers is looking for a reserve guard who can keep teams honest in the halfcourt, he's already got one. His name is Eddie House (40.1 percent from deep).
3. Jason Kidd
As for a point guard who really can't shoot, 35-year-old Jason Kidd's Dallas misadventure may now end with the Mavericks missing the playoffs. Prior to Thursday's loss in Denver, since his arrival in Big D, Kidd was shooting 40.4 percent from the field, averaging 8.5 ppg and the Mavs were 0-8 against teams over .500. In those eight losses Kidd shot 35.3 percent. (The 25-year-old Devin Harris is averaging 16.0 a game on 43.1 shooting for the Nets.) The Mavs made it 0-9 against plus-.500 teams since Kidd's arrival on Thursday, and with seven of their 10 remaining games against winning teams, they are in serious jeopardy of missing the postseason altogether. Of course, that would still be less humiliating than last year's first-round exit.
4. Jamal Crawford
This is madness
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The Final Four
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National Championship
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After dedicating last week's Hit List to the NCAA tournament, we've got to get back to our weekly recognition of the wretched New York Knicks. With help rumored to be on the way in the form of the capable Donnie Walsh, we may not have the Knickerbockers to kick around much longer. But before any changes are made, Isiah Thomas fave Jamal Crawford is going out with his scattershot guns blazing. In his last 13 games Crawford is shooting 36.8 percent from the field. He hasn't shot 50 percent from the floor in his last nine games, and has shot above 40 percent just twice in his last 13. When your leading scorer and shot-taker is clanging over 63 percent of his attempts, well, that's why the Knicks have won twice in March.
5. Jose Canseco
The whole point of a "tell-all" book is that you tell all. You don't write Juiced while holding the juiciest bits back for a score-settling sequel. But now in Vindicated: Big Names, Big Liars, and the Battle to Save Baseball (a real toe-tapper of a title), Canseco tries to slime Alex Rodriguez (mostly by association with Canseco himself) while admitting that he hates A-Rod. After going from the least credible person in sports to the Hallowed Sage of Steroids, Canseco now just seems like the annoying guy who won't shut up at a party. (Who invited him?) I don't doubt that Rodriguez inquired about steroids. How could you play your whole career in the Steroid Era, sharing a locker room with all that backne, without discussing it? But Canseco abuses his unlikely credibility with this unsubstantiated cheap shot. But maybe this is for the best. There was just something wrong in the universe when Canseco was the most trustworthy guy in baseball.
6. Huston Street
Huston, we have a problem, and there is no such thing as Tranquility Base in Oakland as long as Street is the closer. The announcers had barely finished recounting Street's penchant for blown saves -- a league-leading 11 in 2006 -- when he snagged the early- season lead with his Opening Day meltdown in Tokyo. After giving up a game-tying homer in the ninth, Street surrendered two more runs in the 10th and took the loss. Since his dominant rookie season, Street's career ERA has risen by almost a run from 1.72 to 2.69.
7. Jason Varitek
Until Jorge Posada posted the best season of his career in the year he turned 36 in 2007, it was widely accepted that catchers hit the wall at 35. Well, Jason Varitek turns 36 on April 11 and if the early returns are any indication Tek will not be repeating Posada's Ponce de Leon act of a year ago. In two games in Japan, Varitek went 0-for-8 with six strikeouts. In the two at-bats where he actually made contact he grounded into a double play and grounded out to first. So if you're scoring at home that's eight ABs, nine outs and zero balls out of the infield. While the trip was worse for Varitek than most, the whole endeavor seems kind of ridiculous. I get emerging markets and globalization and revenue streams and all that jazz (not really). But why are we trying to sell baseball to a country that is already more wild for it than we are? What's next, are we going to try to export soccer to Brazil?
8. The No Fun League
We're probably stuck with the mopey, droopy-eyed, laconic, dreadlocked Jason Castro on "American Idol," but we may have seen the last of the mighty dreads in the NFL. As the league ponders the reinstatement of dreadlocked Pacman Jones, the competition committee is considering a rule that bans hair covering the names on the backs of jerseys. Hey, fellas, what say we work on making pass interference reviewable and the 100 other more pressing issues facing the league before we get to Troy Polamalu's tresses?
9. Tiger Woods
Wasn't it Bobby Jones who first said, "The next time a photographer shoots a (expletive) picture, I'm going to break his (expletive) neck." For a guy who probably has the greatest life in the world, Tiger Woods sure spends a lot of it angry. The source of most of his consternation is the chronic violation by shutterbugs of the sacrosanct Code of Silence in golf. The solution? Get rid of the Code of Silence! As one of the 170,000 people who attended the third round of the raucous FBR Open in Scottsdale last month, I can attest that golf is a lot more fun when the fans can be fanatic and the golfers don't whine. If the camera click weren't punching through silence it would go unnoticed. What golf needs is more noise from the fans and less from Tiger.
10. Jonathan Roy
Let's face it, it must be hard to be Patrick Roy's son and be a sieve. Jonathon Roy was one of the worst goalies in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League this season, going 3-10 with a 3.96 goals-against average. So when you're down 7-1 in a playoff game and you look over to the bench and see the greatest goalie in the history of the NHL and know you'll never measure up to the old man, well, it's understandable that you might snap. When Jonathan went berserk on opposing goalie Bobby Nadeau (one of the best goalies in the league), some say it was at the behest of his father. But whether the son was literally waved down the ice or figuratively compelled to fight by his own inferiority complex-fueled desire to please his dad hardly matters. Patrick's legacy is secure. And so too now is his son's. Jonathon Roy will forever be remembered as the chip off the old blocker who so desperately wanted his father's approval he kept punching a fallen opponent who didn't want to fight.
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